


Wartime Interlude

by chelseagirl



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), The Bletchley Circle
Genre: Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 07:22:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5448095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chelseagirl/pseuds/chelseagirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean McBrien is happy with her wartime work at Bletchley Park, when she is called away on a secret mission.</p><p>ETA 2/2 hah! My fic just got Jossed in the best possible way!  Agent Carter Episode 2.4 Smoke and Mirrors showed *Peggy* as a Bletchley code breaker getting recruited in pretty much the way Jean gets recruited here.  Do I add a few lines to make things consistent?  Kind of wonderful to be so much on the same page!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wartime Interlude

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xylaria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylaria/gifts).



_I haven’t always been a librarian, you know._ – Jean McBrien, The Bletchley Circle, season 2

**Bletchley Park, Wartime.**

“Jean, a word in my office, please.” 

Jean McBrien unobtrusively smoothed her hair, straightened her collar, and followed Sir Edward out of the corrugated-metal hut, and towards the main building. 

As they passed through the entrance hall into the great house, Jean couldn’t help but contrast the surroundings with the temporary structures in which the women worked. Sir Edward’s office contained a cheap wooden desk and chairs, not unlike the furnishings in the Quonsets, but it also had an immensely high ceiling, a beautiful carved-stone fireplace, and windows that looked out onto the park, with a vista of lawn onto woods, all unobstructed by the wartime construction.  
He gestured to a chair, and Jean took a seat.  
“Is there a problem, sir?”  
“Oh, no, quite the contrary,” said her superior. “The higher-ups are delighted with your work here at Bletchley. You and your girls are making a real contribution to the war effort. But now we need you for a temporary assignment. It’s . . . it’s a lot to ask, but we think you’re up for it.”  
“What is it, sir?”  
“Well, it involves some travel. We need someone with a fair bit of expertise on Enigma to consult with a group in the field. And it needs to be someone who’ll pass unnoticed, unsuspected.”  
_And who is more invisible than a middle-aged woman,_ Jean thought wryly. “I’d be willing sir, but I’ve no field training to speak of. Wouldn’t that be a problem?”  
Sir Edward looked thoughtful. “It shouldn’t be. You ought to be able to pass unremarked, just an ordinary passenger on a train.”  
“Until I need to open my mouth,” she pointed out, exaggerating her Scottish diction just slightly. “One of my girls, Milly, is a wonderful linguist. My French and my German are only serviceable.”  
“Milly? That’s the tall one, quite striking, yes? Seems a bit of a loose cannon – too likely to call attention to herself. No, it’ll have to be you.”  
“But—“  
“Get this Milly to help you with your accent on a few key phrases in both languages. Don’t explain why; at the end of the week you’ll be called away to sit with a dying aunt. Speak as little as possible; we’ll get you into the country with false papers and your contact will meet you on the train.”  
_Just like that,_ she thought. _Years spent in offices, making oneself useful for the war effort, thinking about the men sent out to die in battle, and it happens just like that._  
**Occupied France**  
She’d been smuggled into the country under cover of night; she was still surprised at how deceptively easy it had been, but at the same time, she was aware of all the planning and the risks that had gone into making it that way. Now she was on a train somewhere in the middle of France, still some hours from the border, with her false papers tucked in her handbag and her painfully acquired non-accented phrases dancing through her head. Her French was actually more than serviceable, but she was too afraid of betraying herself, and so she kept herself very much to herself.  
Luckily, no one on the train had the slightest interest in the middle-aged woman with the medium-brown hair and the dull grey coat.  
Milly had known that something was up, but Jean made it clear she wasn’t to ask any more. They all knew when not to ask. Susan and Lucy accepted the false story easily; it was the story of all their lives, as women, to drop everything – even vital war work – when family emergencies arose. Alice and the others in the machine room did likewise. She’d be back at the end of the month, maybe sooner if the imaginary uncle went to his reward sooner.  
Now Jean occupied herself mostly by looking out the window, occasionally reading a page or two of the Balzac she’d brought along. The countryside mostly looked quiet, green, as though nothing were happening. But occasionally, she’d see signs – military outposts, trucks filled with German soldiers driving by, evidence of wartime privation. Hour after hour, a strange combination of monotony and anxiety. She made a mental note to herself to take up knitting; surely the repetition would be soothing.  
Only once did someone try to engage her in conversation, a woman of around her own age. She managed to nod and smile her way through that one; the few choice phrases certainly came in handy there. Fortunately, at the next stop, a younger woman with several small children boarded, and her friendly carriage-mate turned her attention to them.  
About twenty minutes before they were due to reach the border, Jean found herself growing more and more anxious. Would her papers hold up to that kind of scrutiny? Was she going to betray herself with her first words?  
Suddenly, the train came to a screeching halt. The other passengers looked at each other, looked at Jean, murmuring to themselves. _What can it be? What can it be?_  
Noise in the corridor outside the carriages. Footsteps, and shouting. As the sound drew nearer, she could make out some of the words, and with a sigh of relief, she realized they were in English. She moved to the door of the carriage; the other passengers protested, but she opened the door. Outside was a pretty brunette woman, in army fatigues, but with perfect red lipstick. She was accompanied by several men, one confusingly wearing a bowler hat with his uniform.  
“Quickly!” said the woman; she was clearly English.  
“Your ride’s waiting,” said the bowler-hatted soldier; from his voice, he was American.  
Jean grabbed her bag and followed them down the corridor and off the train.  
They ran through underbrush and scrub trees for what seemed miles, until they reached a waiting plane. Once safely inside, the woman spoke.  
“We work for the Strategic Scientific Reserve; it’s a multinational task force focused on scientific approaches to winning the war. Your higher-ups at Bletchley thought you had the best overall knowledge of the programs there; we need you to help us with some captured equipment that we’re customizing.”  
The pilot spoke for the first time. “Typical. They don’t trust me to work it out myself.”  
The woman shot back at him, “Well, Howard, your inventions, however, brilliant, do have a tendency to blow themselves up.”  
“Well, then,” said Jean. “It looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

Jean spent about three weeks at the secret SSR base. Afterwards, she was never quite sure where she’d been; she never would be. They’d entrust her with some of their secrets, but not all of them. That was to be expected.  
Her competence and straightforward manner assured her popularity with the group. Even though she was surrounded by mostly men, a decade or more her junior, she was treated as one of the group, as an equal. Even Howard Stark, the millionaire playboy inventor, fell into an easy camaraderie. As for the woman soldier, Carter, Jean though how much more self-confident she was than the women she worked with back at Bletchley. Treat a woman like she can do anything, and she can.  
Her return to England was quick and sudden. The day after their work was done, Stark flew out; she was home in a matter of hours.  
She thought of allowing herself a day off, but in the end, she was back at Bletchley Park the next morning.

**In my end is my beginning**

Jean looked up from her desk to find a pretty dark-haired woman standing at the doorway. She looked familiar, but it took Jean a moment to place her.  
“How did you get back here?” she asked. “This area isn’t open to the public.”  
“I know,” said the woman, and smiled. “Miss McBrien –“  
“Jean, please.”  
“Jean, it’s been awhile, and I don’t know if you recall, but during the war . . . “  
“That’s not something I’m likely to forget. Margaret Carter, isn’t it?”  
“Peggy. I’m based in the States now; just over for a brief visit. I’ve got a . . . well, an offer of employment. Something along the lines of what you did in the war.”  
“Which neither of us can talk about.”  
Peggy nodded.  
“And this offer, likely the same.”  
Another nod.  
For a moment, Jean hesitated. Working with the girls from Bletchley this past year had brought color and purpose back to her life for the first time since the war had ended. But she was content with the way things were: her job, her friends, and a quiet cup of tea in the evenings. And with the sometimes risky solving of crimes that she and her friends continually got themselves mixed up in.  
“I might be open to some . . . consultation work. But I’m not looking to make a significant change at this time. However, I wonder if you would be open to recommendations?”  
“People who worked with you at . . . “  
“I think we can say Bletchley Park. Yes.”  
“To come and work with this new group? Which I think . . . if you’re willing to work with us occasionally as a consultant . . . we can call SHIELD. You’d have to come in for some training, of course. And your friend, well, that would be a larger commitment.”  
Jean nodded.  
Susan was gone to India with her family; Lucy had her new career at Scotland Yard and her new love, and Alice was building a relationship with her grown daughter. But Milly had never really found her place again, after the war. She’d bounced from job to job, and although she’d just gotten her clearance back for translating work, it was clear she’d needed and wanted something more. Much as she claimed to have gotten involved with the black market simply for needed cash, Jean thought there was something more to it. Milly needed the excitement, the risk.  
“I think I’ve got just the woman for the job.” She picked up the phone and dialed. “Is that Milly? This is Jean. Can you come round after work? There’s someone I’d like you to meet . . . Right then. Half-six.”

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't intend this to be a cross-over, but these characters showed up and insisted they wanted to hang out with Jean. I saw you'd written in a related fandom, so I hope you won't mind.
> 
> Of course, now I'm totally convinced that Milly needs to join SHIELD.


End file.
